Unitedstatesean Notes

Papers the Movie

2009-10-20T21:00:00.000-07:00

More information at this website.

The "Mexican" and the Lawnmower: A Halloween Post

2009-10-19T02:02:00.000-07:00

I left this comment over at Harriet in response to John S. O'Connor's post The Tree Inside my Head.

Hi John,

Thanks for the post. and Thanks for your work as a high school teacher.

I want to begin with a confession, but I confess I don't know what confession to begin with.

First Confession:

As someone who self-identifies as Mexican but who does not pretend to speak as a representative of any "Mexican" group, I don't find Robert's costume idea "sickening" and actually think that it is rather humorous.

The humor of the costume lies in its contradiction of work and play. Had Robert used a real lawnmower in addition to the dirty flannel clothes the joke would have fallen short. But the use of the Fisher-Price mower was a stroke of comedic brilliance.

It is not the costume then that is offensive, but the Hobbesian attitude behind it. We laugh, Hobbes argues, at the failings, infirmities, and absurdity of others because that ridiculing allows us to conceive our own eminence. What is sickening is Robert's imagined superiority. And, John, thanks again for addressing this problem in your classroom.

I do think, though, that this imagined superiority goes far beyond Robert. What should the lesson be? To respect and value those who work for us and who are beneath us in class and social standing. Or should we ask Robert to question his privileged status at this mostly white affluent school and the notable absence of the "Mexican" at this same school. What is sickening is how imagined superiority naturalizes the historical and economic factors that allows the lawnmower to become a symbol for the "Mexican."

Second Confession:

When I was 16 I spent my summer working la yarda. Adolescence is a time of identity crisis. I wanted to work for a landscape company because I, as Robert did, identified being Mexican with the lawnmower. My aunt's husband worked for this landscape company, so did a friend of the family who was living with my aunt and her husband. More importantly so did Carlos, the 16 year old brother of my aunt's husband. Carlos had recently arrived from Mexico and when given a choice to work or to go to school he decided to work. I had become good friends with Carlos. I wanted to show that I, too, could be a good "Mexican," so I decided to work alongside Carlos. I was privileged enough, however, to work only for the summer. I always knew that I would return to school in the Fall.

Carlos still works in the landscaping business. For some people, the lawnmower isn't a stereotype but a livelihood. Carlo's life, though, can't be reduced to the lawnmower. He goes home to his wife and two children.

Third Confession:

I first learned of Octavio Paz on April 19, 1998, the day he passed away. I read of his death in one of the local Spanish newspapers in Houston. The headline grabbed my attention: “Literario Mexicano Octavio Paz Ha Fallecido.” It grabbed my attention not because it announced the death of the Mexican Nobel Laureate—my confession is that I had never heard of Paz—but because the combination of “literario” and “mexicano” sounded so strange to me. A Mexican man of letters? I spent the rest of my Spring 1998 semester at the University of Houston reading everything by Paz that I could get my hands on.

Though I admire the work of Paz, I’m not sure he is the right poet to bring up in battling the stereotypes of the “Mexican.” I would argue that Paz is as far removed from an understanding of the Mexican with the lawnmower as Robert is. John, your post shifts from the yard worker to the major Mexican intellectual of the 20th century without complicating the class differences between the two. Paz knew that his experience differed from the experience of the Mexican worker in the United States. In the controversial first chapter of The Labyrinth of Solitude, Paz describes the pachuco in particular and the Mexican-American in general as “one of the extremes at which the Mexican can arrive.” If we want a literature that battles negative stereotypes of the Mexican in the United States, we should turn not to Paz but to Chicano/a Literature. And because the focus of the discussion has been the yard worker, I would recommend the poetry collection The Date Fruit Elegies by John Olivares Espinosa. He has a beautiful poem that challenges our images of the yard worker: “Grass Isn’t Mowed on Weekends.”

Fourth Confession:

http://blogs.villagevoice.com/runninscared/archives/2009/10/worst_halloween_2.php

<>

Now I have to rethink my costume for this Halloween.

Fifth Confession:

To answer your last question, John, I think the poetry of James Wright challenged some stereotypes I had. Not sure what specifically those stereotypes are, but I’m sure they have something to do with Terreson’s claims for class as a problem.

Huerta and Wurth in El Paso

2009-10-16T16:08:00.000-07:00

Accidentally Deleted "Undocumented Poem" Posts

2009-10-12T22:07:00.000-07:00

In trying to manage my posts I checked several of my posts to mark them as "undocumented poem" posts. Only to accidentally delete them. I found them. I include them here. For the record. That is, to document them.

Monday, August 31, 2009

Waiting for the Barbarians, by Constantine P. Cavafy
This month's "undocumented poem" is one of Constantine P. Cavafy's famous poems. I first encountered Cavafy in an UH undergrad creative writing class taught by Christopher Bakken. I then found a complete works of Cavafy at a UTEP library sale for 25 cents. The whole genius of Cavafy for 25 cents! I will introduce the poem simply by offering this relevant quote from Walter Benjamin: "There is no document of civilization that is not simultaneously a document of barbarism."

Waiting for the Barbarians

What are we waiting for, assembled in the forum?

The barbarians are due here today.

Why isn't anything happening in the senate?
Why do the senators sit there without legislating?

Because the barbarians are coming today.
What laws can the senators make now?
Once the barbarians are here, they'll do the legislating.

Why did our emperor get up so early,
and why is he sitting at the city's main gate
on his throne, in state, wearing the crown?

Because the barbarians are coming today
and the emperor is waiting to receive their leader.
He has even prepared a scroll to give him,
replete with titles, with imposing names.

Why have our two consuls and praetors come out today
wearing their embroidered, their scarlet togas?
Why have they put on bracelets with so many amethysts,
and rings sparkling with magnificent emeralds?
Why are they carrying elegant canes
beautifully worked in silver and gold?

Because the barbarians are coming today
and things like that dazzle the barbarians.

Why don't our distinguished orators come forward as usual
to make their speeches, say what they have to say?

Because the barbarians are coming today
and they're bored by rhetoric and public speaking.

Why this sudden restlessness, this confusion?
(How serious people's faces have become.)
Why are the streets and squares emptying so rapidly,
everyone going home so lost in thought?

Because night has fallen and the barbarians have not come.
And some who have just returned from the border say
there are no barbarians any longer.

And now, what's going to happen to us without barbarians?
They were, those people, a kind of solution.

1 Comments:

Blogger j. pluecker said...

Dude, unless Darwish wrote this poem in English, I think it really makes sense to credit the translator.

It is so easy to forget that these are not actually Darwish's words, but the decisions and heartfelt, laborious choices of a translator. Translated poetry ideally is enriched by its translation and it makes sense to recognize this.

I actually attended an event here in Houston a while back in which a great poet read a translation of Darwish without mentioning any name of a translator or saying it was a translation. I made the same comment to her after her reading.

I think it is worth mentioning again to another great poet, you I mean...

xo

translated by Edmund Keeley

Wednesday, May 27, 2009

Passport, by Mahmoud Darwish
This week's "undocumented poem" is by the Palestinian poet Mahmoud Darwish.

Passport

They did not recognize me in the shadows
That suck away my color in this Passport
And to them my wound was an exhibit
For a tourist Who loves to collect photographs
They did not recognize me,
Ah . . . Don’t leave
The palm of my hand without the sun
Because the trees recognize me
Don’t leave me pale like the moon!

All the birds that followed my palm
To the door of the distant airport
All the wheatfields
All the prisons
All the white tombstones
All the barbed Boundaries
All the waving handkerchiefs
All the eyes
were with me,
But they dropped them from my passport

Stripped of my name and identity?
On soil I nourished with my own hands?
Today Job cried out
Filling the sky:
Don’t make and example of me again!
Oh, gentlemen, Prophets,
Don’t ask the trees for their names
Don’t ask the valleys who their mother is
>From my forehead bursts the sward of light
And from my hand springs the water of the river
All the hearts of the people are my identity
So take away my passport!

Thursday, July 23, 2009
Rib Sandwich, by William J. Harris
I discovered this week's "undocumented poem" in Celebrations: A new anthology of Black American Poetry compiled and edited by Arnold Adoff. It is written by William J. Harris. For a current project, I've been adapting poems by black poets. This is to show as some black scholars and organizations have argued that the immigrant rights movement is an extension of the civil rights movement. This poem, I think, speaks to having a space beyond documentation, a space in which natural life can exist beyond and outside the polis. At least it speaks to the desire for such a space.

Thursday, July 23, 2009
Rib Sandwich

I wanted a rib sandwich

So I got into my car
and drove as fast as I could
to a little black restaurant-
bar
and walked in
and so doing
walked out
of
America

and didn't even
need a passport

Monday, July 27, 2009
Letter to the Not Homeless, by Mary Rudge
This week's "undocumented poem" comes from the July 2009 issue of Street Spirit, which reports on "Justice News and Homeless Blues in the Bay Area."

Street Spirit provides homeless people with a voice which cannot be found in the mainstream media. In our news coverage, commentary, art, and poetry, we focus on the crucial areas of concern which affect the daily lives and survival of the homeless poor. Just as importantly, the newspaper is distributed on the streets by homeless vendors, enabling them to earn a living to make it through these hard economic times.

Street Spirit is more than a newspaper -- it is a community. And you, the reader, can be part of this community by your support. Street Spirit is a tool of enabling and empowering, not just a handout. Please help us continue this crucial work by donating to Street Spirit or subscribing for $25 per year.

Letter to the Not Homeless

A letter from the outer rim of rage
to the core of inner being
of everyone
knowing the people
who live on the street out of mind
without home without healing
that we've learned to walk by
without seeing
that we don't care who is feeding
that no one is feeding, a letter to all
with home and mailbox.
A letter to all who have learned not to care
not to share anymore, there have been
so many so poor so long they are not in our
line of vision, though they stand before us
beseeching, saying God Bless You
for nothing. A letter is coming, has come
from fury, from anger, from despair.
And it says (what it said ten years ago,
and last year, and this morning): We
don't know where to go, what to do. Help!

The poem is by Mary Rudge. I found the following bio on this website:

Mary Rudge speaks internationally at universities, schools, cultural events, and libraries, on five continents on teaching peace skills and Poetry as a Healing Art. She was awarded Honorary Doctorates in Greece, Taiwan, New York, nominated for a Nobel Peace Prize for her literary work, named Princess of Poetry in Italy, crowned in ceremony at the City Hall Rotunda, San Francisco as an international Poet Laureate. She has been the Poet Laureate for the City of Alameda since 2002. Newspapers have called her a global catalyst and one of the Bay Area's most charismatic poets. Her books include "Water Planet" (Leopold Senghor wrote the preface), "Hungary, Austria and Other Passions", "Poems for Ireland" "Beat, She Can't be Beat", and a Beatzine publication: "When The Rapture Comes." She co-edited "Poets and Peace International" for ten years which went to numerous countries with poems in seven languages, "State of Peace: The Women Speak," "Poems from Street Spirit" (on homelessness and other social issues), "The Human Face of Love" on Mental Health issues, and most recently edited three volumes of peace poems by local poets "Farewell to Armaments", "Flaunt Peace in the Face of War" and "For You World Peace IMAGINE."

Thursday, June 18, 2009
Killing Mexicans . . .For Esequiel Hernandez, by Richard Vargas
I haven't been able to blog here at UnitedStatesean Notes for some weeks now because of several reasons: jury duty on a murder case, personal reasons, and a death in the family. The blog is dear to me and so are its few readers. I believe rhythm is everything and everything is rhythm. This post signals my return to UnitedStatesean Notes, but it may take a couple of weeks for me to recapture the rhythm of blogging.

This week's "undocumented poem" comes from the poetry collection American Jesus by Richard Vargas. For those who may need more context for the poem, let wikipedia guide you. For those who need further context for "killing mexicans", I suggest enrolling in a Chicano/Mexican-American History course.

Killing Mexicans . . . For Esequiel Hernandez

in this country marines
kill mexicans tending sheep
because they look like
drug dealers, terrorists
or worse, illegal landscapers

in this country laws are being passed
to wipe our culture from the land
in California they call them propositions
one of the definitions of the word is
"a request for sexual intercourse"
so i guess this means they are being polite
asking for our permission
before they screw us

in this country
we are taking back
the land one minimum
wage job at a time
laughing at their
Taco Bell paranoias
and sour cream fears

they are building walls
to keep us out
but the joke's on them

we never
left

For those who may need more relevant and recent context, I recommend you learn about Brisenia Flores.

For me, the power of the poem is that it concludes with laughter. For a while now I have been considering laughter in literature and am currently reading The Laughter of the Oppressed by Jacqueline Bussie. Does laughter when it comes "from below" represent a type of resistance. It does when it reveals the absurdity of a situation, when it keeps evil, hatred, and oppression from becoming banal. How are we, unapologetic mexicans, to laugh when we lose Brisenia Flores? Because there is nothing more ridiculous in the United States than a new nativist. The joke is the joke of history: when those in power will realize that it is not they who shall liberate us but we who shall liberate them.

But let's move from the context to the text and focus on the poem's execution. The same sleight of hand that the speaker suggests is happening historically is happening formally. The joke is that the U.S. by building its walls is trying to keep out a people that in the Houston Independent School School District already makes up more than 80% percent of the population. That in Texas, there have been more babies born of "Hispanic" (Read Mexican/Central American) descent than "Anglo NonHispanic" babies every year since 1993. That in California, well just look around. That in the other States, keep looking.

The poem performs this contradiction--of being simultaneously an insider and an outsider--with its use and repetition of "in this country." The first three stanzas anaphorically use the prepositional phrase to provide the location of the conflicts. The strategies used to oppress Mexicans in the U.S.--"marines" representing military power and "laws" representing the juridical power--are emphasized in the first and second stanzas, respectively. But the phrase "in this country" becomes more important when it is absent (think here/not here). The joke is that we are already in this country. The poem brilliantly delivers the punchline in the first line.

Monday, July 06, 2009
Dicen de mi, by Yosimar Reyes
I have a colleague who's always talking to me about "decolonizing epistemology." I wonder if this week's undocumented poem falls under that category. In it, the poet/performance artist Yosimar Reyes questions knowledge based on what "they say" and what they write "in their books."

Dicen de mi

They say we come from lands
Not of this place
from a 3rd world
a little farther from their heaven
De montanas frias y sin gente
de pueblos pobres donde el hambre es nuestro pariente
Que venimos de vientos y corrientes
Que somos invisibles
Ya que nuestra voz no sostiene
Valor o poder
porque somos indigentes

They have written their histories with our blood
Built their empires with the bones of our Gods
Erased our tongue
to implement their own
Made us the enemy
in our own home
Divided and conquered
is how our children are born
into a world
where being of color
means you are destined to mourn
the death of antepasados
whose stories have never been told

Dicen que nosotros cruzamos fronteras
en el silencio de la noche
que como criminales rompemos barreras
ya que en nuestras mentes
el concepto de jaulas
nos recuerda que somos salvajes
que como animales no respetamos la ley del hombre

y en las historias que cuenta
No recuerdan
that we have been here for centuries
that before their cities and factories
we used to be righteous
people of the land
with pure hearts and minds
connected to the sun
by gods with dual energies

they forget
that they have made us
nothing more than hands
erased minds and voice
simple robots in a system
where people turn profit
where the history learned is not our own
but one manufactured
by corrupt minds and wickedness

Dicen
y cuentan
que nuestra gente
es mito
una leyenda
que corre como rio
algo falso
cause the names of our dead
are not found in their textbooks

that our existence needs their validation
Because in their progress we will remain silent

y dejalos
que te digan
y te repitan
que te cuenten
y te aseguren

pero no les creas
Ya que en la guerra
el tirano no cuenta su culpa

Y cuando leas sus libros
con tu nombre en ellos
no les creas
just remember
that your stories
are thicker than paper
they are written in flesh
written in land
in the soil
that buries our dead

Nuestra Verdad
In the whispers of wind
in the rays of the sun
your name reflected upon moons
and the spirits of our people
alive in Pachamama's womb

Let them write their books
just remember
that the truth
can never be erased
that our people will forever remain

que en el silencio en que nos dejaron
estan nuestras palabras
para ser sentidas

Let them tell you that your existence
is illegal
Just know
that one day our people
will know
the true definition of freedom

In Houston, students are required to take a Texas History course in 7th grade. I remember feeling defeated when I learned that we, the people of Mexican descent, were the enemies. I feel Yosimar's poem is specially addressed to those young students having to learn history from the viewpoint of the victors. The poem tells them not to believe the textbooks.

The poem, however, does not offer itself as an alternative historical account. It simply points the way to where we may find those other voices. It points us to the silence: "que en el silencio en que nos dejaron/estan nuestras palabras/para ser sentidas."

When it comes to knowing history, Yosimar takes the saying "blood is thicker than water" and suggests, "flesh is thicker than paper."

Yosimar performed at the XWG Noche de Florycanto at UC Berkeley this year. And we were delighted to have him. I managed to exchange books with him. One of our mutual friends suggested that he got the short end of the stick in that deal. I would have to agree.

Sapo Verde to Some Clarifications y otros poemas

2009-10-01T16:46:00.000-07:00

My book Some Clarifications y otros poemas turned two years old yesterday. As one of my friends recently said to me, "Man, you're really milking that thing." Yes, I am. The most recent review is by Craig Santos Perez in the September 2009 issue of the Acentos Review. In the review Perez asks, is this book worth the purchase price for those who don’t read either Spanish or English? Go read the review to find out his answer.

Perhaps my favorite review/commentary about my book and readings of my book appeared a year ago today on the BOMBASTIC Blog. In a post titled "Bilingual", The blogger says of my poems, And they're not my favorite and they're not amazing I highly recommend that you read the rest of the blog post.

Thank you for your support these last two years.

Kennedy and Immigration

2009-09-04T17:14:00.000-07:00

The next round of immigration reform promised by President Obama will be the first in more than 50 years that does not involve Sen. Edward Kennedy.

His record on the issue has quite literally changed the face of the nation.

From the 1965 overhaul that ended a system of national quotas to the failed drive launched in 2007 for comprehensive reform, Kennedy has been at the front lines making the case for a more open immigration system.

Taking a long view – compromising when needed, reaching for more the next time – he achieved it.

Senator Kennedy’s tactics varied and coalition partners shifted during his 47 years in the Senate, but the core principle he defended never varied: The US is a nation of immigrants, he said.

“I look across this historic gathering and I see the future of America,” he said at an immigration rally in Washington on April 10, 2006.

In speeches, Kennedy often invoked the Golden Steps he could see from his Boston office, where new waves of immigrants, including his eight grandparents, came off the docks into East Boston – and a world where “No Irish Need Apply.”

Waiting for the Barbarians, by Constantine P. Cavafy

2009-08-31T18:03:00.000-07:00

This month's "undocumented poem" is one of Constantine P. Cavafy's famous poems. I first encountered Cavafy in an UH undergrad creative writing class taught by Christopher Bakken. I then found a complete works of Cavafy at a UTEP library sale for 25 cents. The whole genius of Cavafy for 25 cents! I will introduce the poem simply by offering this relevant quote from Walter Benjamin: "There is no document of civilization that is not simultaneously a document of barbarism."

Waiting for the Barbarians

What are we waiting for, assembled in the forum?

The barbarians are due here today.

Why isn't anything happening in the senate?
Why do the senators sit there without legislating?

Because the barbarians are coming today.
What laws can the senators make now?
Once the barbarians are here, they'll do the legislating.

Why did our emperor get up so early,
and why is he sitting at the city's main gate
on his throne, in state, wearing the crown?

Because the barbarians are coming today
and the emperor is waiting to receive their leader.
He has even prepared a scroll to give him,
replete with titles, with imposing names.

Why have our two consuls and praetors come out today
wearing their embroidered, their scarlet togas?
Why have they put on bracelets with so many amethysts,
and rings sparkling with magnificent emeralds?
Why are they carrying elegant canes
beautifully worked in silver and gold?

Because the barbarians are coming today
and things like that dazzle the barbarians.

Why don't our distinguished orators come forward as usual
to make their speeches, say what they have to say?

Because the barbarians are coming today
and they're bored by rhetoric and public speaking.

Why this sudden restlessness, this confusion?
(How serious people's faces have become.)
Why are the streets and squares emptying so rapidly,
everyone going home so lost in thought?

Because night has fallen and the barbarians have not come.
And some who have just returned from the border say
there are no barbarians any longer.

And now, what's going to happen to us without barbarians?
They were, those people, a kind of solution.

translated by Edmund Keeley

Save Herta

2009-08-14T16:01:00.000-07:00

Transpoetica in San Toni

2009-08-05T19:05:00.000-07:00

AGOSTO 6, 20:00 HRS., SAN ANTONIO, TEXAS
MESA DE LECTURA DE OBRA
Participan
MONTERREY: Jeannette Lozano Clariond, Guillermo Meléndez, Minerva Reynosa
TEXAS: Carmen Tafolla, Vicente Toro y Javier Huerta
Sede: Centro Cultural de la UNAM en San Antonio, Texas.

AGOSTO 7, 20:30 HRS., SAN ANTONIO, TEXAS
PRESENTACIÓN DE LIBRO
Educada memoria o El libro de Felipe, de Luis Aguilar
Presenta: Elvia Aradalani y el autor.
Sede: Centro Cultural de la UNAM en San Antonio, Texas
Modera: Carmen Tafolla.

(Information may have changed.)

Undocumented Hunger

2009-07-30T22:39:00.000-07:00

Many days went by once more, and this, too, came to an end. Finally the cage caught the attention of a supervisor, and he asked the attendant why they had left this perfectly useful cage standing here unused with rotting straw inside. Nobody knew, until one man, with the help of the table with the number on it, remembered the hunger artist. They pushed the straw around with poles and found the hunger artist in there. “Are you still fasting?” the supervisor asked. “When are you finally going to stop?” “Forgive me everything,” whispered the hunger artist. Only the supervisor, who was pressing his ear up against the cage, understood him. “Certainly,” said the supervisor, tapping his forehead with his finger in order to indicate to the staff the state the hunger artist was in, “we forgive you.” “I always wanted you to admire my fasting,” said the hunger artist. “But we do admire it,” said the supervisor obligingly. “But you shouldn’t admire it,” said the hunger artist. “Well then, we don’t admire it,” said the supervisor, “but why shouldn’t we admire it?” “Because I had to fast. I can’t do anything else,” said the hunger artist. “Just look at you,” said the supervisor, “why can’t you do anything else?” “Because,” said the hunger artist, lifting his head a little and, with his lips pursed as if for a kiss, speaking right into the supervisor’s ear so that he wouldn’t miss anything, “because I couldn’t find a food which tasted good to me. If had found that, believe me, I would not have made a spectacle of myself and would have eaten to my heart’s content, like you and everyone else.” Those were his last words, but in his failing eyes there was still the firm, if no longer proud, conviction that he was continuing to fast.

(Kafka, This translation by Ian Johnston of Malaspina University-College, Nanaimo, BC)

A group of detainees at a Louisiana immigration detention center have begun three-day hunger strikes to protest poor conditions there, immigrant advocates said.

[. . .]

Harbison said records showed only two inmates had failed to report to the mess hall during the period in which the hunger strikes were to have taken place. Striking detainees reported to the mess so they would not face retaliation, said Soni, but left their trays full.